MakerBot Class-Action Lawsuit Dismissed

After a year of litigation, the MakerBot class-action lawsuit has officially been dismissed. According to the official ruling, while there was reason for the plantiffs to present a lawsuit, they did not generate a strong enough interference for the PSLRA. The court also ruled that “almost all of the statements regarding the quality of the 5G printers were inactionable puffery.”

The lawsuit came about last year when shareholders made claims that the company was knowingly selling faulty products — specifically its SmartExtruder — within the marketplace. The product, the plantiffs alleged, kept getting clogged and causing poor print quality. In addition to taking the case to court, the company also released the SmartExtruder+ earlier this year.

The MakerBot Smart Extruder+ features sensors to keep users apprised about print status as well as to improve print performance over time. Image courtesy of MakerBot.

The Smart Extruder+ boasts improvements in several key areas: reduced filament jams, better homing routines, reduced clogging and improved connectivity. To address the clogging issues at the heart of the customer complaints, MakerBot engineers extended the PTFE non-stick surface tube used to feed filament into the nozzle, made software improvements to retract the filament less at different speeds, and enhanced the thermal management system, according to Michael Pappas, lead mechanical engineer on the project.

To create a stand-out test program, MakerBot leaned heavily on the expertise of its parent company Stratasys. The result was the largest testing initiative MakerBot has ever conducted, with two separate groups of extruders, built on two different days, tested at both MakerBot headquarters in New York and Stratasys’ facilities in Eden Prairie, MN.